February 23, 2008

Today was a lazy day with the kids.  The eldest was sick and I was still exhausted from the trip.  So around 2 I took an hour nap after waking up early with the kids.  At least it was lazy until my wife suggested we take advantage of the sunny weather to go for one of our power walks.  It's 3.6 miles pushing jogging strollers and we do it in under an hour.  Not jogging, but walking fast.  It was a good walk.

I did take some time to watch the sun exposure of the rose garden today.  Unfortunately it is blocked by the house most of the day. So while it has a southern exposure, it doesn't get the hours of sun that I'd like for my potatoes.  The best spot for them would be the bump-out of my blueberry bed, but my aunt planted the tulip bulbs she found when we were preparing the bed for the blueberries last fall.  They're already coming up and I don't think she'd take kindly to my removing them to plant potatoes.  Strike two.

I'm determined not to put them in the garden area on top of my gravel.  After talking to my dad, he suggested I move all the cedar wood I've got stacked up against the fence that backs the blueberry bed.  It gets great sun all day long but will eventually be partially blocked by the apple tree.  Thankfully not this year since the tree's shorter than I am. 



The cedar wood stack is about 3 feet high and 15 feet long.  Since it's cedar it burns fast so none of my family wants it for fire wood.  My dad suggested I stack it out front and put a FREE sign up.  My wife suggested I put a post on Craigslist.  Boy am I going to be busy tomorrow.  If I move that stack about 50 feet.  Then dig two holes and gut out the root systems from the cedar trees that died and needed to be cut down last year (thus the wood pile).  Finally I back fill the holes with Mel's Mix and place my bins over it. 

That's a ton of work for my silly potato bins.  Maybe I'll just chuck it all and put them in my beds and sacrifice some other veggies.  Naw, the wood pile has to go (should be gone already, but I had other things to do).  I'll take pictures so you can see the transformation.